Classic Poem

Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind,
The round earth rolls like a germ in the sky,
And see, where the budding hazels are thinned
The wild anemones lie
In undulating shivers beneath the wind!

Over the blue of the duck-pond ply
White ducks, a quacking flotilla of cloud;
And look you, floating just thereby
The blue-gleamed drake stems proud
As Abraham, whose seed shall multiply.

In the lustrous gleam of the water, there
Scramble seven toads, across silk, obscure leaves,
Seven toads that move in the dusk to share
Dim spring that interweaves
The hidden bodies mating everywhere.

Look now, through the woods where the beech-green spurts
Like a storm of emerald snow, now see!
A great bay stallion dances, skirts
The bushes sumptuously,
Going out in spring to the round of his tame deserts.

And you, my lass, with your rich warm face aglow,
What sudden expectation opens you
So wide as you watch the catkins blow
Their dust from the birch on the blue
Lift of the pulsing wind? ah, say that you know!

Yes, say it! For, sure from the golden sun
A quickening, masculine gleam floats in to all
Us creatures, people and flowers undone
And opened under his thrall
As he plants his new germ in us. What is there to shun?

Why, I should think that from the earth there fly
Fine thrills to the neighbour stars, fine hidden beams
Thrown lustily off from our full-sappy, high
And fecund globe of dreams,
To quicken the spheres spring-virgin again in the sky.

Do you not hear each morsel thrill
With joy at travelling to plant itself within
The expectant one, and therein to instil
Newness, new shape to win,
From the drowse of life wake up another will?

Surely, ah not in words alone I'd spill
The vivid, ah, the fiery surplus of life
From off my measure, to touch you deep, and fill
You flush and rife
With this year's newness! — And is that evil?